“Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee.
For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people: but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee.
And the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising.
… The sun shall be no more thy light by day; neither for brightness shall the moon give light unto thee: but the Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting light, and thy God thy glory.
Thy sun shall no more go down; neither shall thy moon withdraw itself: for the Lord shall be thine everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended.”Isaiah 60:1-3, 19-20

The early bird gets the berry! I love winter landscapes, expecially with a little red in them. And I'm always trying to get snow and crystals to sparkle and refract light. And I also love chickadees :-) So this was a natural combination!

“To give knowledge of salvation unto his people by the remission of their sins,
Through the tender mercy of our God; whereby the dayspring from on high hath visited us,
To give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”Luke 1:77-79

I love red in a winter landscape. And I love ice in the sunlight. Every winter I want to do a picture with ice, but until now I haven't been able to get the effect I was looking for. This time I think it finally turned out right.

I have a maple tree in my yard that sometimes turns these colors in the fall - red on the outer leaves, then yellow, and the inner leaves still green. Other years, though, it just turns yellow. Then it's more like the tree in my Autumn Guardian.

I created a version of this picture several years ago, but I never posted it because I wasn't quite satisfied. So I decided to take another look and polish it a bit. I ended up changing more than I had intended, but I'm pretty happy with it now. Here's the earlier version.

This morning was the first frost of autumn, and I finished this picture just in time. I love chilly mornings with frost, especially when the sun is just rising and everything glitters. I also love fall with all its colors.

This is actually looking out the window of the cottage in Cwm Solitude. You can just make out the path heading out of the cwm, and the steam fog coming from the river in the foreground.

“‘Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him.’
And, lo, the star, which they saw in the east, went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was. When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy.”December 13, 2016